Edited by Pam Brown

Poems by Corey Wakeling

The sky is what we apologize for as the ecumenicaland you reply “hydroponics are possible anyplace,”those who read Transnistria closely do not necessarily ferryfrom polity to métier,something up and wanting,harboring the cat burglar in their closet, an actormaking Tennyson of the cloaked darkness, marching. So then,agreed, say it is the sky from which the bullet flies, Acéphale.

My thoughts were to hang the contorted scowl of Poe’sportrait above the landing and investigatethe salt of his earth, the plaster. The white desert is purest furthest, flung-set, likethe roll of the dice or feline plummet. To think they shortenedthe lemon tree so that it’d stop producing citrus. One man’s steamboat is another man’s King James Bible,the Song of Songs of Song of Songs of Song of Songsof Song of Songs of Song of Songs of Solomontorn out.What morass exhausts you,hides you from the third procurement,turning back the hair and letting the sweat dribble, as if it camefrom the anxious vein throbbing like a world of sighs orperistalsis.You-know-what in the gape of the orangeof the birds of paradise, purged but for purgatorialHigh Wycombe secured in reticulation. To finishwith a conjunction would be worth the pelting of the lead brigadeby members of economist corner, by the economist of the economistsof economist corner, for the economist of the economists of economist corner,had they the squinty eye of all genius, the woman in daffodilswith a half glass of lager, puckering her lips like a rosebud at herhusband, turned to the tree lopper in overalls shammed bythe sawdust of spruce.The sky is thus what we apologize for and why wefondle alone in night hours, backs to the ceiling. If not thatthen at least mock drowning staged of the wreckof the HMS Orange.Look into the orifice of Da Vinci,the riddle is a skull not another body, nor another bodyof bodies of the body bodies, nor by the body of bodiesof the body bodies, nor for the body of bodies ofthe body bodies.The curled back the bald hull of the Orange,the desert a swelling surface of sawdust of spruce,the reflection of sky in night hours the songsof the mock drowning.

No Head for Old Boardwalks

Question time in broad country, thisis no head for old boardwalks consideringthe hinterland cottage and the fifteenancestors and someone’s designs to beemissary. One lobe then of a bicameralbush trail that eventuates in the desert,like the sweating pub in Toodyay,or the bush mouth at Kalamunda’s peak.No head to stirrup or give the bit, rummagingthrough heirloom trunks for unfilled postcards,though tarnished brooches with profiles ofthose other than the faces of ancestors wereuncovered, not to be unexpected,of brass, lead and pewter.Abandoned by her caravan, a young womanis visited by Venus of Willendorf though a librarydoes not clutch her collar but a coloured knitscarf, the floating Venus no longer a projectionfrom an archive of defunction.Nudity is the embarrassment of both loners,the woman invites where the Venus departs,the woman mouths soundlessly where the Venusstirs sounds of underbrush by the footstepsof her ephemeral museum.They say the capital has stolen her now,the woman thinks it is her lips mouthing the captionsof lit artefacts and the Rosetta stone floorof the empty form of a glorious fleet.Moldavite feet, she now reads the horses asidethe delivery vans with the speed of the tongue,their pseudo tetanus shots and fleecedphysiotherapists, the hardness of hooves andthe sobriquets that deliver them healthy,like black caviar or monkey’s pride. A good enoughtalisman if you’re haunted by the artefact andyou wish to plunge into the sedge and seek thecoastline of Albany or the eyes that are the sweatinglights of the museum, having to abjure and omitthe facility of the beachcomber Parisian.Such feet do not deliver you like the fleet rathercrack you like a hardboiled egg, thequestion is does she plunge or does she investigate?Jarrah floorboards fitted poorly let light anddust through, she smells the thinking of the curator’seyes from beneath him. When it is that the broochof the decapitated profile, the gleam of the Moldavitefoot, or the oolite figure are sought by her, the questionsof the attic start their chain dragging and horse reading.To quote her eisegesis on Melbourne’s khaki jacket,“if I went back to my parent’s street, I would findmyself beginning the Bibbulmun track again.”

Success

There are some bloodhounds lost to the east of the olive groveand the eldest white gums, where the earth is marshyand all the blue granite turns green by moss. There are thosewho aren’t afraid of the canines of the poem. “Don’t sucka lemon — Success.”[1] And the wombat comes out of its holewith its hands up. And the fox comes out of its hole withits hands up. And the rabbit comes out of its hole with itshands up. And the bilby comes out of its hole with its hands up.And the brown snake comes out of its hole with its hands up.And the platypus comes out of its hole with its hands up. Andthe wolf spider comes out of its hole with its hands up. Andthe opossum comes out of its hole with its hands up. Andthe fruit bat comes out of its hole with its hands up. And theBombala comes out of its hole with its hands up.The bloodhounds responsible are the poem.The canines of the bloodhound are soft from the work of Success. The milieu is something like the hole coming out of itself, like a stony nail strip employed by the police to stop done up Valiants and tinted Fairlanes. By turning the grit of the subterranean are we to close Brunswick Road for our dolly of the wolf spider pageant, for the dolly of the rabbit pageant, for the dolly of the wombat pageant, for the dolly of the brown snake pageant,for the dolly of the fruit bat pageant, for the dolly of the Bombala pageant, videlicet thepageant of the hole coming out of itself with its hands up for the poem where the earth is marshy and shaded by the eldest white gums and granite glows green with new moss. Éclat for those unafraid of the canines of the poem.

1. Quote by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in concert.

Shriek

To leave a shriek keyboard andnot a corpse, cadaver permitting.For the anatomy showor apprenticeship in synthesizers,shrieks in browns and redsapprising the only poet ofhow death neared the firsttrespasser drenched wetbut never frozen to the nostrils,like the expedition for nothing.Full of notes in flagellation country,might read the breast reversed,flesh fallen off like a cloister.

The first of five sections of Pam Brown’s 2011–2012 feature devoted to fifty-one contemporary poets from Australia, part 1 collects work by Mark Young, Tim Wright, Fiona Wright, Adrian Wiggins, Alan Wearne, Corey Wakeling, Ann Vickery, John Tranter, James Stuart and Amanda Stewart, along with artwork by Louis Armand and Paul Sloan.

Listen along with the feature

In conjunction with this Jacket2 feature, Pam Brown organized a PennSound anthology of Australian poetry that showcases recordings from more than two dozen of the poets found herein. The majority of these recordings were made over the past several years, and give outsiders an excellent sense of the reading series in Australia and New Zealand that are driving a vital poetry scene (in much the same way that this feature stresses the network of journals sustaining the scene).